FloWrestling’s own Willie Saylor was mentored by Coach Steve Powell, who announced his retirement from a 40-year, hall-of-fame career with Easton High School wrestling last week. Below, Willie shares his experiences with Coach Powell and the tremendous impact he had on the Easton community.

I wasn’t in a good place.

Living in eastern Pennsylvania, with its rich wrestling history, I was one of the best up-and-comers. But by age 14, with a stubborn and seemingly incorrigible attitude, I was spending more time running the streets of Easton with other kids from broken homes than I was in a wrestling room. Things were going downhill quickly. I was a punk.

That’s the way Coach Steve Powell found me—not old enough to drive a car, but already a reclamation project.

Last Friday, after 40 years on staff that included 32 as head coach, Steve Powell announced his retirement in the simplest of ways: an email that thanked everyone for their time, effort, and support over the years, and listed some of his best memories. Local media dedicated full editorials to it, and it was picked up nationally by Intermat and TheOpenMat.

Thanks to Coach Powell, Easton Wrestling rose to national prominence and enjoyed a long stretch of national top-10 teams and stints at No. 1. Easton's dominance under Coach Powell also included 534 dual meet wins—the most in District 11 history—and a long line of alumni that became NCAA qualifiers. One of Powell’s favorite memories is watching four former Red Rovers on the mat at the same time at the 2002 NCAA Championships in Albany, New York.

The recognitions, honors and accolades he accumulated over the years are impressive—they include inductions to both the national and state wrestling halls of fame, and National Coach of the Year multiple times. Brad Wilson, 2015's National Wrestling Media Association’s Journalist of the Year, wonderfully captures Powell by the numbers in this piece.

Powell's accomplishments seem endless: 19 state champions (third-most-ever in Pennsylvania); eight state team titles; mentoring takedown artists Jordan Oliver and Jack Cuvo, who won pairs of NCAA titles 25 years apart; and coaching wrestlers who beat Henry Cejudo, Jake Varner, and California’s only four-time state champ Darrell Vasquez.

But what’s had the most gravity to me are things that you can’t find in record books.



Easton’s not the easiest town to grow up in, and teenage years aren’t the easiest to manage on your own. After Coach Powell found me, I enjoyed a decent high school career, and so did many others. I wasn’t the only one whose life was improved by Powell’s discipline and demand for accountability. There are scores of former Easton wrestlers who went on to be better young adults after previously lacking structure or purpose.

Many times, I've sat in the stands and watched the Red Rovers that came after me. Not only have I been impressed, but proud that those who I knew had it rough bought in to Powell's plan. They did the right things, and chose a difficult, but far more rewarding path.

Likewise, Powell engendered a community that rabidly supports their wrestling team—a vibrant and active group that garners higher attendance for matches and tournaments, home or away, than most colleges. The Easton wrestling boosters lent the program a real family feel, and made things possible—like trips to the first-ever Ironman and Reno TOCs—that wouldn’t have been possible otherwise.

With such a large, supportive effort, wrestling was always the forefront of the community, and still dominates the local media. Easton wrestling matches became the place to be for everyone in the town, and that's true to this day.

To Coach Powell, Easton the town was more important than Easton the program. He did more than see his wrestlers’ hands raised. He changed lives, fostered a community and reinforced the fabric of a town. And he did it all through wrestling.